US Federal Court uphelds 'open source license'

"Copyright holders who engage in open source licensing have the right to control the modification and distribution of copyrighted material."
[08/19/2008]

In Jacobson v. Katzer, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that violation of the open source conditions are remedied through a contract claim rather than copyright. Jacobson's open source license at issue here allowed anyone to use his software so long as his conditions are met (such as making any modified code freely available).

The clear language of the Artistic License creates conditions to protect the economic rights at issue in the granting of a public license. Through this controlled spread of information, the copyright holder gains creative collaborators to the open source project; by requiring that changes made by downstream users be visible to the copyright holder and others, the copyright holder learns about the uses for his software and gains others' knowledge that can be used to advance future software releases.

This decision is based on the court's interpretation of 9th Circuit law. However, its impact on patent law may be a reminder that the court will allow patent infringement actions even when the infringement is based on violation of an intricate or exotic licensing contract.

More details on the Patent Law Blog.

Full decision text (pdf).